Chapter 37
Realizing he wasn’t dead was a strange thing for Gunnar.
When he took Kushiel’s holy, hellfire blade through the chest, he’d been pretty sure that was it. Box checked, story over. Yet here he was—sort of. Unlike his time in solitary, where his awareness had been steady, if removed, Gunnar was having trouble tracking time, his surroundings. Anything, really. Pain came and went. So did light. So did consciousness.
He wondered if he was still dying, just slower than expected.
Whatever the case, two things stayed consistent.
First, the scent of sunshine.
Audrey was alive.
Knowing that single fact let him rest, otherwise he would have clawed his way out of this torpor by now, whatever the cost. He inhaled, pain lancing through every inch of his muddled existence as he chased the trace of her, to confirm she was still alive, safe.
Second was her voice, which picked the perfect time to speak.
“Everything is okay, Jonathan. Rest as long as you need. I love you.”
She did that every time, he realized as his body relaxed, and his thoughts grew fuzzy and disconnected, right before they went dark. Every time she spoke, she ended by saying she loved him.
“I know sustain potions are horrible, but I don’t know how long you need to recover. I love you.”
“I don’t know if you can smell the cookies or not, but you don’t get any until you wake up, just so you know. I love you.”
“I’m sorry. I know this probably hurts, but the bandages need changing. I love you.”
“I’m here. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s just a dream. I’m here, I’m alive, and I love you.”
“I miss you. Please come back to me. I love you.”
Hells of a motivator.
Gunnar had no fucking clue how long he’d been out of it. All he knew was as he woke for the first in what felt like another damn decade in torpor, his mouth tasted like shit and he smelled worse. He blinked a few times, built-up crud scratching at his eyes. Lifting his hands to scrub at his face was a chore, muscles stiff and the skin on his chest too tight. He ached, bone deep, and he let out a wheeze as he tried to chuckle.
Sure, he’d been wounded over the years, been in shit shape on more than a few occasions, but his vileblood let him shake off most wounds. Pain was always manageable, no matter how bad, since it was temporary. He healed fast, too fast for infections or fevers to take root, was immune to almost all diseases of the human sort. He’d never tested if he could regrow a severed limb, but the point was he’d never really dealt with wound recovery because his body just took care of it and quick. Give him the chance to duck into torpor, and he healed even faster.
Now, though, fuck.
Gunnar knew he wasn’t all the way right. He ached everywhere, the most where he’d been run through by Kushiel’s blade. He knew instinctually he’d lost muscle mass, his body screaming in protest at the effort it took to prop himself up on an elbow. His chest felt heavy, wrong. Different. With a grunt, he slumped against the headboard and tried to find his bearings.
His room, looked like. Curtains closed, but late morning given the shadows and bright sky. Gunnar inhaled a few times, senses a bit addled; they always were when he wrestled out of torpor. He found a large glass of water on the nightstand, gulped it down. It helped, the sensation of cold spreading through his chest waking him up the rest of the way.
The fight against Kushiel rattled around in his skull, all that fucking mess, but the most important bits: Audrey was alive, and Kushiel was not.
Where was she, anyway? Gunnar listened for a minute, but the house felt empty. He frowned a bit; even in torpor, it felt like she’d been next to him the entire time. He tried to recall the last time she spoke, something about train day, that she needed to go to the station.
I love you.
He fucking hated train day, he thought with a grumble, but his patience ran out within seconds, his mind shifting around, muddling through, just needed know where she was, when she’d be back. A snort, and he swung his legs over the bed, self-disdain twofold at being needy as hell and dizzy from sitting up. When his head stopped spinning, he ambled to the door, pushing it open, and called out to her even though he knew in his bones she wasn’t at the cabin right now.
Gunnar scrubbed his face. Train day, she’d mentioned. Coming today? Leaving?
Who came in with the train this time?
He licked his dry lips. Train days had been shit for a while running now. First Dimitri, then Mateo, then Kushiel. Gunnar ran a hand through his hair, fingers tugging at greasy knots.
He really had no idea how long Audrey’d been gone, but the question of where she was now and if she was safe beat against his skull in a drum, his skin tingling head to toe at the intruding thought something had happened to her while he was out of it.
They had Nizhny, though. Friends. Good people, they wouldn’t have let anything happen, but then again, Audrey wasn’t theirs to protect. She wasn’t anyone’s responsibility but his.
He stumbled toward the door, pushed his feet into his boots, and hit the rails.
Cold bit at his skin, but he didn’t care. A drum beat to match his pounding heart: Audrey, Audrey, Audrey.
He didn’t run only because he couldn’t. He tried, got winded after a few steps, and settled into a brisk walk when the spots in his vision settled down. Now Gunnar trudged and grunted and growled his way toward the station. Felt good, the icy air biting at his face, his bare arms. Right now, he needed the extra anchor to his body after floating.
Train day meant he’d been down and out at least a week—if today was the train day after Kushiel’s arrival and not weeks further out.
Fuck, how long had he been useless? How long had he left her alone?
She wasn’t alone, he repeated to himself, and although it was foreign and strange, he really couldn’t keep on denying it. The whole damn town had showed up to save them, and it hadn’t been just for Audrey, not this time.
Didn’t change the clawing tightness in his chest. It went deep, didn’t fit with the injury pattern. It wasn’t the cold burning his laboring lungs. A different tightness, felt like his heart being squeezed to a pulp.
Gunnar licked his lips again, forced himself into a jog when the station appeared on the horizon. He just needed to see her, to know she was alright. Needed it more than he needed the oxygen he struggled to breathe in, more than the heat leaking from his exhausted body into the frosty air. He just needed, needed on a level that made no fucking sense, that didn’t have description beyond right now or he was going to lose what was left of his fucking mind.
The rails were empty at the station’s edge, meaning the train had already left, which meant strangers had been in town for an entire day while he slept. Another growl left his lips. Fucking careless on his part. He stared at the space where the train pulled in each week, his mind running in circles, all of which ended with Audrey tied up or hurt or dead and tossed into one of those storage cars.
Or maybe she’d gone and done something stupid, like leaving Nizhny because she didn’t want him to get hurt on her behalf again.
Gunnar rubbed his chest, struggling for air, that tightness growing, pain lancing through his body. Panic, he realized. He was panicking.
He was standing in the middle of the train tracks, clutching his chest without a coat on, like a useless fuck.
“Jonathan?”
He spun wildly, and there she was, standing on the station’s front stairs while Virtue held the door open for her. Audrey, a laundry basket balanced on one hip, two large bags in the other arm. Hazel eyes were wide, shocked to see him. She looked pale, deep circles under her eyes, her hair in a messy, lopsided bun.
She looked fucking perfect.
The tightness in his chest abated, the pain receding, and suddenly he could breathe again. Gunnar huffed between a laugh of relief, exhaustion, sheer idiocy, he didn’t know. All he knew was that she was over there and he was over here, and that was bullshit.
He jogged over as she asked, “Where is your coat?” before he was on her, scooping her up in his arms as she shrieked at him. The bags dropped, the clean laundry tipping everywhere. “Jonathan? What’s wrong?”
He buried his face against her neck, inhaling until it hurt. Sunshine, his sunshine. He really was a fucking idiot. He felt the blush creeping up her throat as he nuzzled against it.
“Are you okay?” Her arms wrapped around his neck, those soft fingers brushing his skin, but she was tentative and worried.
That wouldn’t do. He set her back on her feet, cupped her face in his hands, made sure he had her full attention. She blinked up at him, owlish, her brow furrowed in concern.
“Everything,” Gunnar said, swallowing a few times before he went on. “That’s what you mean. To me. Everything.”
“Jonathan . . .” Her entire expression softened, the way he bet she looked every time she’d whispered she loved him while she’d taken care of him and waited for him to wake up. To come back to her, she’d said.
When he kissed her, she let out a tiny sob against his lips. He brushed his nose along hers, rested his forehead against hers. Inhaled that bright, beautiful scent of her joy, everything he’d never believed he’d deserved, but it was for him and he wanted it, and he was going to take it. Protect this, right here, this feeling, the gorgeous smile when he leaned back to look down at her, the adoration and love she’d offered him.
“Everything,” he repeated, firm. Almost angry in the way he said it, needing some kind of confirmation she understood. She nodded, her cheeks warm against his palms.
“About time,” Virtue said, leaning against the station’s open door.
Audrey laughed, burying herself in Gunnar’s arms and hiding her face. He let her, looking over at Virtue with a shrug as he kept Audrey close.
Audrey rubbed at his bare arms. “You shouldn’t be out like this in the cold. Virtue, is there a blanket?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t you dare. You’ve been unconscious for a week!”
Gunnar winced at the firm poke she landed right on his chest.
“Oh gods, I’m so sorry!”
“I’m fine,” he repeated, and this time she scowled at him but didn’t poke him again.
“You’ll get him home and warm sooner if you just go now,” Virtue offered, her expression amused.
Gunnar held Audrey tighter to him. “Everyone . . .” He swallowed a few times, not sure how to ask what the fight with Kushiel had cost Nizhny.
“Everyone is recovering,” Virtue said, and he knew it wasn’t the full story, but he wouldn’t get it now, standing on the taiga without a coat. With a wave and a knowing smile, the succubus ducked back into the station.
Audrey sighed, then gathered up the spilled mess—food mostly, some bandages, and what looked like a few potions, and left the laundry to be washed again. She refused to let him help or carry anything, and for once, he didn’t argue. They headed home, walking shoulder to shoulder, the silence comfortable considering his confession moments before. Audrey kept a casual pace, chewing on her bottom lip. Didn’t much matter, really. She was here and safe, and he couldn’t find himself much bothered about anything else.
But then she sniffled and cleared her throat. When Gunnar looked down at her in question, she shook her head, not looking at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He couldn’t think of a damn thing she had to apologize about.
Another sniffle. “I wasn’t there. I promised you I’d be there, but then you woke up alone.”
“It’s fine.”
“It is not.” She stopped, glaring at him over her bags, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “I should have waited until you woke up, but we were out of food and I figured you’d be hungry once you did . . .” She stalled when he rested both hands on her shoulders.
“I did wake up worried when you weren’t there,” he admitted, “but not because you broke your promise. Shit keeps happening on train days, so I think hearing you talk about it drew me out of torpor. Then you weren’t in the house, and all I could think about was maybe something happened.”
He didn’t mention the fear she might’ve left him, which seemed stupid now.
“Nothing happened. I literally didn’t leave the house once until this morning. And it wasn’t until after the train left.” She scrunched her nose. “Train day has definitely lost a lot of appeal.”
“Yeah, fuck it.” He smiled when she laughed, then cupped her cheek so he could wipe away a stray tear. “We’re alright, Audrey.”
She leaned against his palm with a sigh but then straightened up. “Well, almost. You need to get inside. I can’t believe you came out without a coat.”
They walked on, so close their bodies brushed with each step. “I run hot.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
By the time they got home, Gunnar had to sit down at the table, breathing labored, his entire body dead weight, but he didn’t retreat to his room. Instead, he watched Audrey bustle around the kitchen, putting the food away and cleaning up, talking at him about ten miles an hour about everything he’d missed (nothing, the settlement quiet since Kushiel’s dramatic show) and about how everyone was doing (well, considering).
The severity of wounds varied. Innocence was all but healed up, grumpy he’d missed watching Kushiel die. Rina and Virtue were both fine, if inseparable, and Aster was staying with the leshy to help heal him and his forest. Gullin took some of the worst of it, but apparently his connection with E allowed for swift healing. He’d left on the train this morning again, and so had the blood mage from the Dominion. Tomas’s blood madness had been cured, and he was now focused on fretting over Innocence, much to the incubus’s delight.
The wolf pack had a few losses during the fight, and one of the Clan got caught in the hellfire and died. Njal, one of Hertha and Frode’s sons, who Gunnar’d spoken to on only a few occasions. They had sent him off with a proper Viking funeral, Valkyries and all, the day after his death. Audrey had offered condolences and thanks for them both and suggested they pay a visit to the Clan tomorrow.
She chattered about the food next, everything she’d picked up, including Aster’s Shepard’s pie with extra meat, just like he preferred, and served him a portion with a mug of hot chocolate—no coffee, not while he needed more sleep.
“I’ve slept enough,” he grumbled as he ate. She sat across from him now, drinking her own hot chocolate.
“Torpor isn’t really sleep. It’s more like a coma.”
He grunted.
“I know you’re tired,” she added. Her grin was mischievous when she added, “Besides, you look horrible.”
“You don’t look so hot yourself.”
“That’s rude.”
“You were rude first.”
A little hum, not disagreeing with him, and she took another sip. Silence stretched for a few minutes while he ate and Audrey fiddled with her mug. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted. “I was too worried about you.”
Gunnar set his fork down, wiped his mouth, and took her in for a minute. Exhaustion was all over her—the rumpled clothing, dark circles, unkempt hair. She seemed thinner too, which he didn’t much like. And she still smelled worried, even though he was sitting right in front of her.
“That bad, huh?”
Audrey gave him a weak smile. “Yes.”
He extended his hand, palm up, and she didn’t hesitate to take it. He squeezed, stared at their joined fingers as she wove her tiny ones between his. “Thanks,” he said, his voice raspy. He cleared his throat a few times, having a hard time looking up at her. “No one ever watched out for me before you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s the same for me, you know. Before you, no one ever cared about me.”
“That’s not true. You had Theo. The druid who took you in. They cared, and everyone here damn well cares about you too.”
Her smile was patient as she added her other hand to their tangled pile. “They all came after you, Jonathan. After you saved my life that day in the slums.” He wanted to protest—surely there’d been someone, but she shook her head. “I know I never talk much about my life before that night, but there really isn’t much to tell. My parents sold me into an indenture factory contract.” She shrugged. “I have no memories of them. The factory keeper who had my contract wasn’t cruel, but he didn’t care. He bought up lots of orphans, put us to work as soon as we could hold tools. After a few years, I ran away because the older boys were abusive and stole food from kids who were smaller.
“After that, I lived on the streets, but I had no one. I never mattered to anyone. No one cared what happened to me. Not until you showed up in that alley.” Another shrug, a soft smile. Those gentle eyes, undoing him. “And for whatever reason, I mattered to you.”
“Yeah, you did.” He chuckled. “Still can’t explain it, not really, but no fucking regrets.”
After a pause, Audrey said, “I mean it, you know that, right?”
His mouth went dry.
She stared right into him. Firm. Unblinking. Confident and unwavering. “I love you. It’s okay if it’s not something you can say back to me, but I need you to believe me.”
He wanted to, but it still felt so strange to him. “You going to get pissed if I ask you why?”
“Why do I love you?”
He shifted in the seat but kept his hand with hers. “Yeah.”
Audrey’s smile was still gentle, her scent warm with sunshine and what he guessed was love, and amazingly enough, the two things were alike.
“I loved you when you saved me. For intervening on my behalf, for being willing to stay with me so I didn’t have to be alone when I died.
“But then you did more, and you made sure I lived at the cost of your freedom. I loved you for being selfless. I loved you for giving me a life. I loved you for giving me a purpose.
“I loved you because even when you didn’t believe I could free you—and I know you didn’t, don’t even try to deny it—you agreed to let me try. I loved the ways you were kind and gentle to me even when you were chained to the table.”
She closed her eyes, letting out a slow exhale, memories shivering over her skin and scent, and he knew what she was remembering before she said, “And I loved you for caring, for putting my well-being first when they tried to intimidate me over that stupid silver toothpick.”
“I wanted to kill them,” Gunnar muttered.
“I probably shouldn’t love you for that, but I do.” Audrey laughed and just kept going with whys and reasons, like there wasn’t an end to this list of hers. “But I fell entirely in love with you the night my apartment burned down. I knew you wanted to be free and alone, but when I lost everything, you decided you wanted me safe more. And you’ve kept me safe, you make me feel safe, and I love you for that too.
“I love you for the home you’ve made for us. I love you for knowing how I take my tea, even though you’d rather die than drink any yourself.”
She kept smiling at him, wiping away tears now—why was she crying? And she still smelled like love, and sunshine, and happiness. He stood, frowning at her as she shook her head.
“I love you for how you smile at me, for letting me sleep in your bed so I don’t have nightmares, for being funny and smart and for taking care of Zhadan when he worried about Lyubava.”
She laughed again when he caught her face in both hands, growling down at her, wanting her to stop and keep going, he wasn’t sure which. Both?
“I love you for letting me sleep in your shirt,” she said as she grinned up at him, “for helping me give out cookies, and for being grumpy at me when I don’t eat enough. Is that enough whys? I have more, I can do this all day if you—”
He kissed her. Seemed like the right thing to do, and it was, making her giggle against his lips.
“Alright,” he mumbled against her mouth. “Alright, I believe you.”
“Good,” she said, kissing him again, then his chin as she dropped onto flat feet. “But I don’t love how bad you smell. Go take a shower, then we can get both get some sleep.”
“Hmmm.” He held her face, kissing her again, nibbling at her bottom lip. She laughed again, trying to push him away.
“Please, you stink!”
Another growl, but he leaned back. “Fine, but only if you join me. Gonna need help.”
He motioned to his chest, then his back. She blinked once, that pretty blush going up to the tips of her ears, the shyness in her scent about as good as the rest of it, and he somehow kept a straight face.
“Still feeling pretty weak and all that.” Audrey narrowed her eyes, so he added, “Can’t reach my back.”
She swallowed once, still blushing despite her small grin as she turned him by his shoulders and pushed him toward the bathroom. “Alright, alright. No need to be a baby.”
Gunnar laughed this time but let her nudge him along.